Aleksander Kowalski

Aleksander Kowalski competed as a defender at the 1928 and 1932 Winter Olympic ice hockey tournaments. With AZS Warszawa he won five Polish Championships (1927-1931). In his 31 appearances for the national team, Kowalski scored six goals. He competed in two World (1930, 1931) and three separately held European Championships (1926, 1927, 1929). In 1929, he was second with the Polish team and in 1928 won a World Students’ Championship. In 1930 Kowalski played in a European selection against Canada. After his active career, he stayed involved with ice hockey as an official and referee.

Kowalski completed bank training at the School of Economics. Professionally, he then worked as a clerk for the Ministry of Railways and subsequently for the Municipal Savings Bank of Warzsawa. As a lieutenant of the Polish Army Kowalski was taken prisoner by the Russians on 25 September 1939 and was executed in April 1940 as one of about 4,400 Polish officers by the Soviet People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs NKVD in a forest near Katyn. The exact date of his death is not known; the one we use is from the lists of the NKVD. This war crime is known as the Katyn massacre.